Thursday, 11 November 2010

Sapporo Food: World Japanese Foodin' [En]

Again, on the way to somewhere else entirely we found somewhere new!

Apparently World Japanese Foodin' [En] (I mean, possibly just 'En' would suffice, but then on the menus it's just World Japanese Foodin' with no sign of the 'En', so...) has only been open for a few months, so perhaps it's still finding its feet. That said, if it is, it's doing a damn good job of it. It's a stylish, fancy bar-restaurant place that's a little pricey (though not too bad at all, especially for the quality we got), and done up in a so-trendy modernly minimal retro style. You'll know what I mean when you see it. Or perhaps you won't.

Look at that craziness, and up there in the background is a private room that can hold more than 20 people and can be separated from the rest of the restaurant.

It's owned by the same people that own Meer Lounge, which is a great little subterranean bar in Tanuki Koji, but it's not just an above-ground, more restaurant-y version of Meer Lounge. I've eaten at Meer Lounge a few times, and it's good but nothing to write home about - it's more of a bar than somewhere to eat. The food at En on the other hand was really fucking good.

It's still mostly medium sized, sharable, izakaya style food, but - wow. We left thoroughly satisfied. The California Dragon Roll was amazing, seriously, and I'm no great fan of American-style sushi. We also got some raw spring rolls with smoked salmon off the specials menu - that were great, a big caesar salad - that was great and a Japanese-style pizza - that was great. It was, basically, all great.

Please note that is was Japanese-style pizza though, and I know a lot of Western people get all out-of-joint about pizza in Japan. I'm not comparing this to pizza you can get in the US or Europe, but at least at En they make the point of calling it "Japanese pizza" on the menu, so you know what you're going to be getting. I liked it anyway.

It was all good, the beer was good, the staff were super-friendly and I can basically recommend the place whole-heartedly as a great place to eat out in Odori. It's just a little to the West of the main drag and, going by my experience, so worth a visit. Is it on my map? Why of course it is.